


the whispering melody, the song of my love

by arical (crowkerus)



Category: Arcaea (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Experimental Style, Found Family, Gen, Headcanon, i try very hard to replicate arcaeas story style
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkerus/pseuds/arical
Summary: What happens to those whose stories are left untold? Shattered memories make shattered stories, and someone needs to pick up the pieces.There is a light on the horizon, and Kanae doesn’t care what it takes to get there.
Kudos: 9





	1. I. A Wandering Melody Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I am a simple soul. I get invested in Arcaea's worldbuilding. I see that half of the non-collab partners have stories. I pick them up, and run.
> 
> Disclaimer, if you couldn't tell from the extremely short chapter lengths - this project is far from a priority for me, so will be updated EXTREMELY sporadically. (read my other works though)
> 
> I also don't know how this ends, even though I know where the plot's going to go now. Oops. Also I'm pretty sure if we ever get more main story past Black Fate this whole thing might stop being canon compliant.

When she wakes, the world is wrong.

It isn't so much of an awakening as a realization. One moment she thinks she may not have existed, and with a blink everything crashes around her. How out of place she must seem. Standing alone, on a hill, ribbons and hair fluttering despite the lack of a breeze. She pats her hair back, distantly registering the braids the tresses are twisted into, but cannot do anything but stare at the sky.

She was looking at the sunset before this. She knows this, and is sure of it. But that cannot be.

The sky holds nothing but light.

As long as she stands here, that doesn't change. She glares at the clouds for what feels like hours but must be days, and aside from a slow and gentle pulsing, the light fails to diminish.

So she resigns herself to this. This world is strange, and inexplicable. There is no danger to her, as standing here has not made her feel any more hungry or tired. No one is around to tell her what to do or tie her down, so she may as well follow her whims. The only whim she has, though, is to wander.

And she does. For a very, very long time. Through the ashes of a broken world, she travels in what are not circles but feel repetitive.

It isn't exactly like she's alone, though. Memories don't count as people, but they count for something. Little fragments of worlds left behind, stories that suck you in and leave you transfixed for anywhere from seconds to months. They're drawn to her, but after a while, she's compelled to push them away. Memories are nice, of course, but it's hard enough to keep moving when you don't even know why you're here. To sit down, to do nothing - to keep reliving the same memories over and over - all of it sounds like a recipe to lose yourself.

(Somewhere, far away, a girl in white is proving this theory.)

The only choice she has, then, is to keep pushing onwards.

All along is the same sky. No matter how many memories she looks at, there's no trace of a world like hers. Although she knows, for certain, that only the elites of mankind had slipped the surface of the earth with any real frequency - there's no real reason to feel trapped on the planet, if there's nowhere to escape to - it's still a burden. It's still suffocating. It’s still been so long since she’s seen her sunset, which she’s sure must (have) exist(ed). But how can there be a sunset without sun? In this world of light, there must be some sort of darkness, if only to rest her eyes.

The only reprieve comes from the ruins of the buildings she explores, when they have roofs at all. Some support beams in near-razed buildings stand completely intact, while others sag under inexplicably destroyed framework. A blend of urbanized and ancient styles, too - cathedrals next to skyscrapers, cryptic structures and crumbling statues alike. She'd have so many questions, if she only knew what to ask.

Today's investigation is routine. A new building, which she idly explores. She wedges her fingers under a piece of rubble and pulls upwards, freeing the fragment of glass trapped underneath. It floats to her side, and she makes no move to examine it. As this building doesn't seem to have anything else in it, she moves to leave.

And a resounding crack echoes through her consciousness.

She yells, raising her arms above her head, bracing for an impact that never comes. Belatedly, she realizes that this auditorium never had a roof to fall upon her. Still, she cannot find the source of the sound until she runs outside and turns her gaze to the horizon. When she does, the source is obvious.

There's no longer any question about what she must do now. About where she should go, or what to prioritize. She selects five or six of her favorite memories - of fireworks, of laughter, of love - and dismisses the rest. They fall to the ground, and do not shatter. Food and water is not and has never been a concern. The only thing that matters now is her new destination.

In the distance, there is a gathering storm.

In the distance, there is a fractured sky.

In the distance, there is the gleam of the sun.

She takes a breath, and places one foot in front of the other, and begins to walk.


	2. II. Avant Raze

A broken world, they called it. One that needed fixing, in whatever capacity she was able to soothe it in. One that had so recently taken its last breaths, and needed her help to move it forward. They called it a mission, but she knew it for what it was.

Exile.

Which isn’t to say she didn’t deserve it, of course. Nor that it was unexpected. Someone like her, who’d sent ripples through their little community, who’d broken every one of their most sacred codes - it was a miracle that it had taken so long, and that it wasn’t anything harsher.

Maybe the only surprising thing was how little she cared. Or that she didn’t protest. The only gesture she allowed herself at her sentencing was a glance at her teacher. He only stared back, stony-eyed, as she knew he would.

Hopefully he’ll find a new apprentice. Hopefully, one that isn’t quite as troublesome. One who, if they are ever sent to this same forsaken world, is only there for a mission.

As she lands in Arcaea, she knows this is the last world she will ever travel to.

* * *

Of course she knows her name. The sound of it no longer matters, now that she will never see another soul, but she says it to herself, sometimes, anyway. It doesn’t really do anything, but it’s nice to have. If nothing else, she has herself.

And that is all. This world is a ruined one, and there’s nothing left in it to put right. No reconstructing the buildings, nor stitching societies whole. More simply, there’s no way to put souls back into flesh - or, at least, she’s not allowed to. Not like that’s stopped her before.

This world is a ruined one, except for the shards of glass that cover it. Surely, these mean something to someone. She picks up a fragment and turns it over in her hands. If she tilts it this way, she can catch the barest trace of another planet’s night sky. If she brings it to her face, it remains only glass. It may mean something to someone, but it certainly means nothing to her.

When she was cast out, her scythe was snapped in two. No more magic for poor old her, it seems. Now, she just has the tip to... look pretty? To use as jewelry? It’s not like she has anything else to do with it. Beauty, it seems, is all she has left. And the glass, at least, is beautiful.

The months stretch into years, and perhaps even centuries. Or maybe not a day has passed. It is very hard to keep track of time when there’s simply no way to track it. All the clocks had stopped whenever such catastrophe had struck the realm. The water clocks, the wind chimes, the unconventional ones - these have been shattered, too. Even sundials are useless when there is no sun to strike them.

Which is the issue, isn’t it. There is no sun. At first, this bothered her. Now, she’s learned to live with it. Just another strange mark of a strange world. Without a weapon of her own, without the means to fly and break open the endless light - it isn’t as if she can do anything about it.

It isn’t like she can do anything about this world, at all. Even when she had endless power at her fingertips, she probably would have been able to reconstruct the rubble, at best... and then what? You cannot resurrect the dead without bodies to put them in, and she has not seen any corpses since arriving. Or rather, and more importantly - you cannot resurrect the dead without putting a piece of yourself into them. And there are simply too much gone to save everyone without losing yourself. This realm is beyond repair, and always has been.

So she gives up. It’s a very easy decision, especially when there isn’t another. The best idea she can come up with, in this strange world where she never dies despite the lack of food or water, is to make herself beautiful. To blend into the landscape, become something to inspire whoever passes by. If anyone ever passes by.

She makes good progress, for a while. Silk flowers and ribbons, little accessories to accentuate what she brought from the other world. Using those curious glass fragments as mirrors, she winds these precious things through her hair until she is just as decorated as the ruined statues in her ruined world. She climbs next to them now, a daunting task now that she is only mortal, but makes it eventually. She fixes her posture, and she breathes in, and she closes her eyes.

But she only sits a year, and no longer. Were there calendars to mark the date, she would know that the catalyst happened on the anniversary of her self-imposed erasure. On this day, there is a great and resounding crack, and she wakes quite suddenly to a shattered sky.

Rather than break from her posture or leap for joy, she simply stares at the pieces and considers her options. A younger version of her would have run after this shard of change. A much younger version of her would fly through the gap to escape this forsaken place. But she is old, and she is very, very tired.

So when the sky fractures anew, when the clouds finally give way - there is nothing left for her to do but simply stay where she is. The world will continue to turn, and nothing will change. She will be stuck here, forever, and she will face her exile as she deserves.

Her penance can only come alone. This much, she knows.

“Hello?”

Or perhaps it isn’t that simple.


	3. III. Tie Me Down Gently

At first, it seemed impossible. Just another statue on the horizon, a mirage in the haze. Some human-shaped figure adhered to an ornate building - something she’d seen a thousand times, and had raised false hopes of on even more occasions.

As she got closer, though, the discrepancies became noticeable. Yes, the figure has grey skin that blended into the building, but she wears fabric. When the wind blows, her ashen hair rustles. The girl walks to the base of the building and stares upwards, and of course it seems impossible - but doesn’t everything else in this world?

“Hello?” she calls out, and the figure jolts as if waking from a long sleep.

Languidly, the figure stretches out one leg, then the other. She rolls her neck, as if she has all the time in the world - which she probably does - and fixes the girl with a stare.

For a long time, she says nothing, and perhaps she’s merely an automaton after all. Unseeing, unthinking, merely programmed to react to this slightest trace of humanity.

The girl contemplates leaving and has nearly taken a step away when the figure speaks.

“Do you have a name?” she asks, voice much lower than she’d expected, but with a certain lilt to it regardless. The girl wrapped in sunset considers this.

“I don’t think so,” she says, “or I don’t remember.”

Quite sharply, the figure sighs. “I do not particularly care if it is your own, child. Pick a name that comes to you. One you stole, perhaps. I wouldn’t know.”

She’s not actually sure what to say to that. “Stealing is wrong?”

“I have done more wrong than you will ever know,” the figure says, remarkably disaffected, as if this is a normal thing to say in conversation to a complete stranger. “Name theft does not bother me. What may I call you?”

The girl thinks about this for a while. There’s a memory in the set that she still has. The amber glow of sunset; fireworks and crickets all around her. A hand in hers. Laughing. The only memory she allows herself to relive over and over is this one, a summer festival of some sort.

Where wishes are granted.

“Kanae,” she suggests, and looks up. “You can call me Kanae. And you are?”

The figure simply regards her, then tilts her head. Almost hypnotically, the golden pendant swings back and forth with the motion. What Kanae had assumed to be a headband seems to be real horns, fixed to the sides of the figure’s head.

“Sia,” she says, finally, and it’s after such a pause that it’s hard to tell if it is a name or a similarly chosen moniker. "That is all."  


With that, apparently satisfied, she settles back on her spire and closes her eyes. Kanae presses her lips together, swaying in the slight breeze, and frowns.

“Sia,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“Sleeping. Obviously.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Forever and no time at all. That is how it seems to work in this realm.”

“Right. Okay.” Kanae places a hand on her hip. “Do you expect to stay there forever?”

“Yes,” Sia says as if it were obvious, still without opening her eyes. “Do you expect to ask many more questions?”

“Of course. You’re not answering many of them.”

“I am answering them truthfully, child. If you’d like better answers, you should ask better questions. You realize that this is, perhaps, the only chance you’ll ever have to ask someone else in this forsaken world. Perhaps you may find what they know about it.” In an elegant swoop, Sia crosses one leg over the other.

“Well, what do you know?” Kanae snaps, patience wearing thin.

“Absolutely nothing.”

Clearly, attempting to interact with this first and final being is going to get her nowhere. With a huff, Kanae spins on her heel and fixes her gaze upwards. The longer she stays, the more of a chance the sky may have to repair itself, and then she’ll never be able to... leave? Dream? Simply breathe, taking in air that hasn’t been trapped under this crystalline dome?

Whatever. Talking to Sia is wasting both of their time, and she’d best be on her way. The girl takes not three steps away before the figure calls out to her.

“Kanae.”

“What?” She tries to make her irritation as obvious as possible.

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.”

“Ah.” Sia doesn’t seem impressed with the answer. Another three steps forward. “Stop that.”

“Why does it matter? You’re never going to see me again.”

“Why do you feel the need to leave?” she counters. “This ruined world is not going anywhere. Here is the same as there, is the same as anywhere else. I’m sure you’ve been here long enough to realize.”

“Because if I don’t keep walking, I won’t know what to do with myself. I’m sure you’ve been here long enough to realize that, too. That if you don’t give yourself some sort of purpose, all you have left to do is...” Kanae raises her eyebrows. “Sleep?”

“Sleep,” Sia confirms. “But it’s also far easier to do so, don’t you agree?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It isn’t as if anything ever changes. I’m sure I’ll forget you sometime within the next eternity.”

“Have you seen anyone else, here, then?”

A pause. “No.”

“Then this is change. Besides,” she adds, “the sky has broken open.”

“The sky?”

When Kanae turns around, she gets no small amount of satisfaction from watching Sia open her eyes and stare upwards. She doesn’t respond for a while. Her speech, when she does, is slow.

“The sky has broken open,” she repeats with no enthusiasm.

“It is,” Kanae confirms. “And I want to get to it.”

“You can see it perfectly fine from here. It’s not as if you’d have a way to escape, anyway.”

“Aren’t you curious about it?” Kanae asks. “Even a little?”

Oddly, Sia doesn’t reply, not even to make some sort of sarcastic comment or indifferent gesture. Instead, heavily, she sighs.

“Are you asking if I may be your companion as you set off on this obviously foolhardy quest?”

“A quest implies there’s something at the end of it. How about a journey? I just want to look. And you can just sleep anywhere, right?”

Sia looks at Kanae through eyes half-lidded. “It is going to be very annoying to travel with you,” she notes.

“The feeling is mutual.”

A fluid shrug, and she rises to her feet. “Well, I suppose I have no choice but to accept. If only because it’ll give me the chance to vex you for the rest of eternity.”

Before Kanae can respond to that, Sia leans over the edge of the building to fall, effortlessly, to the ground.

The rotting boards crack beneath her, and she leaves a miniature crater when she lands. The figure dusts herself off, daintily, apparently unharmed, and glances at the girl with darkened, disinterested eyes. Her irises, Kanae realizes, are golden.

“Then let us be off,” Sia says, and starts walking without waiting for a reply.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you enjoy my work, please [check out my main pseud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkerus/pseuds/crowkerus) for my OC stories!


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